HARD TARGET

HOLLOWPOINT

“Hard Target” — Page Fifteen

In Cricket’s neighborhood, a few well-timed, well-placed parlor tricks probably keep the hostiles at a safe distance. As Bruce Wayne famously put it, “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot.” Being the Witch Woman of West Side has intimidation points. It would certainly work on me, but then I’m a superstitious lot myself.Our hero, however, has his own reasons for not being impressed, and is frankly not about to put up with this kind of carnival side-show juju.

By the way, I hope it is clear that her cough is caused by the effects of her own homegrown pepper-gas and not because he’s strangling her or anything. The two of them may be pushing to see who dominates but our hero is still as gentlemanly as we can allow him to be under the circumstances.

Spicy

Yes, I was seriously tempted to whip up some pepper gas grenades of my own just to test things out. I’m sure no one is surprised. Ultimately, however, I decided against it. It wasn’t actually needed for the comic – ordinary smoke and fire effects work just as well – and frankly, I’ve had a few recent mishaps with capsicum-containing products that make me wish to avoid having any more. Anyone who has accidentally sneezed while holding an open container of cayenne pepper probably has stories of their own.

My wife and I like to make our own microwave popcorn for movie nights using popcorn in a glassine bag along with a bit of ghee or olive oil – it works really well. One cold night I had the bright idea of dosing the bag with a potent brand chili oil from the Asian market – I thought it would make for spicy popcorn. Well, it did – but the bag also burst open, venting a cloud of superheated steam and atomized chili oil that sent us both fleeing outdoors with eyes streaming. I think we can safely assume that just about any simple dispersal method for throwing cayenne pepper or chili powder into a person’s face would be fairly effective.

Most colored smokes are nothing more than potassium chlorate and lactose (milk sugar – powdered sugar will also work) along with a quantity of powdered dye to turn the white smoke into the desired color. Chlorate mixes are generally preferred because they work well and burn relatively “cool” so that the dye color is not destroyed in the process. I was reasonably certain I could substitute finely ground chili powder for the dye and get myself in all sorts of pain, but as stated I decided against the experiment. Mainly because it was raining and I’d have to do most of the experiment indoors. Sometimes you just have to listen to those little nagging doubts.

Besides, I’ve been driven to coughing fits just opening a packet of spicy ramen flavoring. So I was pretty sure Cricket could have pulled an adequate effect with something a simple as a pile of shaved match heads under some Madras curry powder. It’s all in the presentation, after all.

Unless the person she’s trying to impress has witnessed a ghost who can stop bullets in flight. Cricket’s up against the very personification of a “tough audience” here.

— Bob out

Bonus! As always, Max-The-Artist gave plenty of extra art along the edges as “bleed” and sometimes I’m hard-pressed to know where to crop it. Have to, because otherwise at the size it needs to be for the page, the uncropped version’s text is too small to read easily. (Patreon’s version is double-size at 1200 x 1800 so no problem there.) Nonetheless, I thought the page was so pretty I’ve included the uncropped version below.

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Discussion (22) ¬

Two words: Powdered Wasabi. Avoid if at all possible unless you’ve got a really good resperator and a set of swim goggles handy. Nasty stuff.

I have made a low grade tear gas by accident before when making chicken quesidillas. I decided to kick up the chicken I was frying with some Franks’s. Big mistake. The oil I was frying the chicken in pulled the capsicum out of the franks, then got a little too hot and started to smoke. Cleared the whole house out real quick. I was just lucky it was summer so I could open up the windows and air the place out.

Really Balthazar, you are that weak? I use that with my mustard when I’m whipping up mustard from scratch.(the fun part is water or vinegar)
Now for a good spice bomb, well I don’t live where I can get crawfish by the tow sack like I used to. For my boil I’d start with a bit of ‘zataran’s shrimp boil’ put the potatos and corn in first then open up my 2.2kg container of cayenne and start adding heaping tablespoons depending on my mood. Heh, had a friend who’d been LEO over one day he stuck his face in the steam coming off the pot. Poor guy came up face was all red, his eyes were watering, drooling almost uncontrollably, nose running…if I didn’t know better I’d swear even his earwax and turned runny. He had the BIGGEST smile ever, he said “Oh man, that’s more heat than getting hit in the eyes with pepper spray, this is going to be GOOD”.

And ya know what? It was. 🙂 I make chili one of two ways…barely taste and “makes a good deworming substitute and dehorning salve”

Be advised that most powdered Wasibi is actually powdered horseradish and green dye.
Real wasabi is very expensive, even in Japan. Wasabi grows wild along streams and is, I am told, extremely difficult to cultivate.

CS does go away quicker, and both are a great way to clear out the sinus cavity… but they are two entirely different monsters. CS gets all over you until you are clear of it, while OC is usually in a spray dispersal limiting exposure but sticks to where it hits for a loooong time. Next time use dawn dishwashing solution, it will remove the OC oil faster, and if used carefully you won’t end up with the “shower flash.”

We had the Dawn . Still had that grit in my eyes all week. The residual CS in my BDUs was only a minor irritation in my memory ( 1988 was a
Minute ago!). And Allmighty willing I won’t have to do it again. I have chemo instead. Time to turn in the badge I think.

Good question – the high-res version on Patreon doesn’t really make it any clearer what it is or where it came from – no indication of it in the previous panel.
Maybe it’s a bit of rope-burn from when he torques her around by her own cape between panels?

It should be “Fuge Magiam Meam,” “fugite” is for commanding multiple people, it takes the accusative case, and “magicus” means “related to magic/magical” whereas “Magia” is sorcery or the art/science of magic. Source: I speak Latin and ancient greek

Something tells me that Crickett really isn’t prepared for what Max is going to tell her, and that she’s going to be more of a liability than an asset. ‘Hedge witch’ aside, messing with an unknown is not bright, especially since clocking him hard cross the face didn’t seem to faze him at all.